


Call It Quits on a Losing Hand

by Transom



Category: The Band (Band 1968)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:41:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25193338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transom/pseuds/Transom
Summary: Robbie and Levon go one last round.
Kudos: 30





	Call It Quits on a Losing Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Some not-super-important notes at the end, if you feel like reading those first. Otherwise, go straight on through, and thanks for reading.

“I’ll deal.” 

Robbie said it with authority. Levon grinned and leaned back in his chair. It was just like Robbie. It really was. 

“Alright. You’ll deal, then,” Levon agreed, nodding slowly. His cigarette was running low, but he didn’t feel like lighting up another one. Maybe later. 

The room was already smoky enough. Even the cards were stained yellow-brown, to match the wallpaper and bedcovers. Robbie clearly hadn’t been able to sleep, but he had kept himself locked away, smoking like some damn cartoon factory all night long, with the window cracked open to let in some Arctic winter air. Sort of for ambiance, Levon guessed. 

He looked tired as hell, too. It wasn’t the same kind of tired that Levon felt; that was the good kind, like after a coupla rounds with a real lively woman. Or how football teams must feel after winning the big one. That was the kind of tired where you could lie there and feel every muscle at once, like there had been a roaring fire in your bones that had died down a long enough time ago that it didn’t hurt any more. It just kinda ached, rumbled low. That good kind of tired. 

But _Robbie’s_ tired looked like the kind where you could be walking along the road, or pumping gas or something, and you would think _damn, I could curl up on the concrete right now and be just fine. Just gimme a scrawny stray dog for a pillow and an old brown paper sack for a blanket_. Levon knew from personal experience how that kind of tired made it hard to hold your head up, hard to keep going. Hard to just _live_ , to go through all the trouble of breathing out and back in again. 

Robbie had his face propped up with one hand, and was slinging cards out to himself and Levon with the other. Levon didn’t ask what they would be playing, waited until Robbie got them all set up. All he knew was, it was sure to be something Robbie could beat him at. 

He couldn’t complain, though, he thought, as he made the first move. Dealer goes last was tradition, and Robbie waited his turn. He could do that, at least. 

“Shouldn’t’ve played that one first,” Robbie muttered, the words sliding lazily out of the side of his mouth as he lay his own card down. 

“Ah, fuck off,” Levon drawled, toothless. “I know what I’m doing.” He carelessly tossed another card at him, and Robbie had to wake up in a hurry to slap his hand over it and keep it from sliding off the table. 

“Hey. _Easy_ , man.” 

Levon chuckled, a little wheezily. “Nice reflex.” 

Robbie smirked at him, a little shy, keeping his eyes low to his hand. Levon liked that look, but he couldn’t tell if it was because of the humility in it or what. Maybe it was just those pretty eyelashes Robbie had. 

They settled into the rhythm of the game, Robbie lighting up another cigarette. Levon had a beer to keep him company as Robbie racked up cards and the cockiness crept back in. 

Levon studied this side of him in the low lamplight. It was the first side he had ever seen of him, way back when, and he had liked it, then at least. He had thought back then that Robbie was really something cool, with his far-looking dark eyes and his thin mouth curled cleverly around a cigarette, and his fingers running through his hair, flighty, without any real purpose. He had liked the way his talking voice had snarled like kudzu around his insides, and it was even worse when he sang, low and warm and out of tune, a new song that he thought Levon would really dig, or an old one that he knew he did. 

Maybe it was the songs. Maybe they didn’t suit his voice anymore. Or maybe Robbie had found his own. A more itching, shameful thought was that maybe Robbie had never liked the way he had sung them, but he had let him because it was convenient for him. Maybe Levon had just been there, an empty cavern to echo Robbie’s words back at him when he needed him to. 

“Did you ever really need us?” Levon asked. He watched him close, his mouth twisting wryly as he was beginning to figure him out. 

To his credit, Robbie didn’t try to blow smoke up his ass. He just shrugged, and flopped another card down. “I guess so. I don’t know. I know you guys didn’t really need me all that much. But hey, it worked out, didn’t it?” 

Levon nodded slow and thoughtful. “I s’pose we ended up makin’ a pretty decent noise, all things considered.” 

He grinned, and Robbie grinned back at him, and for a moment, Levon forgot how bad he had just got his ass kicked at cards, or how Robbie was slowly slipping away from him. Finally, he lit his cigarette, and blew out a long cloud of smoke, like a lonely train deep in the mountains. 

“You cheat,” he coughed, as Robbie took up their cards and shuffled. 

“You were always terrible at that game.” 

“Let’s play one that I’m better at, then.” 

“What, Go Fish?” 

“Real funny.” Levon reached for the cards, and Robbie pulled them back to his chest, eyeing him suspiciously. After a moment, though, he relinquished them, and Levon gave them his own shuffle, bending them roughly, almost in half with his thumbs, the way he knew Robbie hated. 

“You know Hearts?” he asked him, his cigarette bouncing at the corner of his mouth. 

“I’m more of a War kinda guy,” Robbie said. 

Levon snorted. “War it is then.” He preferred that choice anyway. Hearts was at least partially strategic, but War was all about chance. And Robbie had never been as lucky as Levon. 

The new game was quiet, real quiet, like their brains were trying to go to sleep while their beat-up old bodies kept on going out of habit. But then Robbie stubbed out his cigarette, and sighed deeply, leaning back in his chair and watching Levon with a sort of wry amusement. 

“Do you think it went too well? Was that the problem? Like, if it hadn’t, at least we woulda had an excuse?” 

“An excuse for what?” 

“For, y’know.” He waved his hand back and forth between them. “The way it is now.” 

Levon scoffed. “You wanna go back? Is that it?” 

Robbie shrugged. “Maybe.” He was silent for a time, while Levon quietly let him rethink his answer. “No. I don’t wanna do that. That sounds fucking terrible.” 

“Yeah. It sure does. Now shut up and put a card down. Game’s almost over. ‘Sides, ain’t you tired yet?” 

Robbie laughed, almost bitter. “Not enough, not yet.” 

“Well, then you gotta keep playin’. Those're the rules.” 

Levon gave him a serious look, but Robbie still had a faint twinkle in his eye. Levon suddenly felt like he was being played with, and it scraped at his insides, the pity that Robbie clearly had for him. 

“Look,” Robbie said, suddenly gentle. It seemed so unnatural from him, but it still pulled at something inside Levon. “We both know when to call it quits. Right?” 

“S’pose,” Levon grunted. “We just cain’t agree on a schedule, it seems.” 

He started to smoke his cigarette stubbornly, in slow, deliberate drags. They were running out of cards, and he sent up a wry prayer of thanks. It was becoming a pathetically thin disguise anyway. 

“You can go. I don’t mind.” More of that uncanny sort of kindness. It almost seemed like the real thing, but it was only a vestige, the scent of smoke on the wind. 

Levon bristled at it. “What if I don’t wanna?” 

“Don’t be a stubborn old mule. Come on.” 

Something didn’t sit right with Levon, ending it just like that. All he had wanted was to be allowed to touch him, to reach him again, to clap him on the shoulder or ruffle his hair, steal his sunglasses. Robbie had always hated that, hated when anyone approached with any amount of honesty the carefully crafted illusions that he had built around himself. But Levon was too tired to play at that anymore. And it hurt, not so much that Robbie didn’t want him, but that Levon could no longer muster the energy to _make_ him want him. It was a game that Robbie had let him in on carelessly anyway, like a kid told to share their toys. If Levon stayed, Robbie would act like he didn’t care, and if he went... well, he would still act like that, but now Levon was distressingly confident that it was no longer pretend. Or at least, if it was, it came all too easily, and that was just as bad. 

But, if that’s what Robbie really wanted, then Levon could give him that. No matter the hurt it did to himself, what Robbie wanted mattered. It hadn’t mattered as much to him back then, when it should’ve, and for that he was sorry. He probably could’ve made life a while lot easier for himself if he had. But, then, he had always known self-preservation to be a funny thing, that it had a way of showing up late for the gig. Robbie liked to accuse him of being passive-aggressive, and maybe that was true too, but Levon preferred to think of it as giving a guy lots of chances. It was only after the millionth chance that Levon was willing to finally show his hand, take it or leave it. 

Levon stood, shoving his cigarettes into his pocket. He watched Robbie watch him leave, his now-lined face blank as a sphinx. Levon had left all his cards on the table. Robbie would know what to do with them now.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve really liked the Band for years now, but I still don’t know as much about them as I do other groups. So these are some impressions I do have, distilled into a little fic about the beginning of the end of a relationship. Could be read as slash, at least one-sided. More of a study on Levon Helm and his (probably rightful) bitterness towards one Robbie Robertson.


End file.
